I'm Not Anyone
by AutumnFirstLight
Summary: Renesmee is grown and life is going well, but one truly terrible day changes all that. Now she's back in high school, back in Forks, and Jacob hates her. Things just get better and better. AU. M because Nessie has a dirty mouth.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N. What can I say about this story? Nothing really. I can't defend it. It happened. It couldn't be stopped. It was a mudslide, a flood, a crowd on Black Friday. I won't beg you to like it because that's like asking you to like the crazy guy who stands on the corner with the sign saying "I am God," and moaning at people. But, maybe, just maybe, this story will work its way into your bones and grow on you, like leukemia. That's my hope at least.  
P.S. misspellings of names are on purpose, 'cause it's AU.**

My name is RenneEsme Kullen.

Apparently I'm crazy.

I shivered and wrapped my arms tighter around myself. If I ever got out of this god-damned place I was walking myself strait to the nearest shrink and demanding that they lock me away. I was going to tell them all that I was just as bat-shit as my bat-shit mother. They could even send me to the same facility as her, since she got out a few months ago. Good thing too, or they'd have to add _homicidal_ to my psychosis. And that's exactly what it had to be, psychosis. Who the fuck else wakes up in the middle of a forest, surrounded by _goo, _and completely fucking naked?

Not just naked, nekkid. Nekkid and hairless. God-damned hairless. Everywhere. I didn't even have eyelashes. Something I was ruing right then as the rain ran into my eyes unhindered. Oh, and it was raining. I was naked, hairless, in the middle of a forest, covered in some kind of greenish-brown goo, and it was raining. Did I mention I had no idea where the fuck I was?

Yeah, there's that, too, which just added fodder to my "I'm insane" theory. Really, who wakes up in the middle of the forest with no memory of how they got there. And, I don't mean kind of fuzzy just-coming-off-a-binge/trip kind of no memory, I mean there's-nothing-the-fuck-there no memory. I shivered again and huddled under a pine tree.

The few memories I did have also added to my crazy theory. These were fuzzy, but identifiable at least. I thought I remembered my car breaking down. Not just breaking down, stopping. Everything stopped, the lights, the radio, everything. I coasted over to the side of the high way and pulled out my phone, it was dead. The gps in my car was dead too. Outside everything seemed really quiet. Seeing no one I opened the door and stood up. There was a bug like buzzing sound and a sharp pain in my neck. I felt someone grab my arms.

I remembered being strapped down, the smell of ammonia, lots of bright lights. English in heavy accents, and one Canadian one. I remembered pain in my back so powerful it bowed my body and made me scream.

Then I remember waking up as I was. Around me in a perfect 50 foot radius was nothing. Well, not quite nothing, there was an odd green-grey goo covering the flat ground. In fact, it made up the ground as well. As I tried to stand, and failed, it turned out the stuff was more than a foot deep. The rain stopped, the sun came out, and I finally found the will to move. I felt like a newborn colt, I couldn't seem to get my legs under me for the longest time and when I did my walking was more of a wobble than a stride. Then, at the edge of the circle of goo, the world turned back to forest again. I tried not think of how I'd gotten in the middle of it.

Freaked out doesn't even begin to cover how I felt.

I wandered for a long time dazed and frightened, mostly in shock, before it occurred to me that I might need to find a way to survive. I knew that when I was being briefed for camping as a kid the rangers would always say that the best thing to do was stay where you were. They said most people who survived getting lost did so because they didn't run around all. They stayed. Well, considering the circumstances and my present conditions I couldn't find a reason to go back.

I continued on, and before long my feet and legs, soft as a newborn's, were covered in welts and cuts. A wild forest on un-calloused skin is not a gentle thing. The few times I did speak it was to curse, declare myself insane, and curse my birth my mother. How the fuck did I get myself into this?

Finding shelter was easy enough, the trees were huge and the ground was heavy with fallen logs and vegetation. And, don't get me wrong, I'm smart. At least as smart as my mom, and she's scary smart. A few evergreen branches, a few pieces of fern and I had myself an adequate shelter for the night. I didn't stop me from spending the entire time shivering. It didn't stop the gnawing hunger in my stomach. Damn. I felt like I'd never eaten.

Day two and I considered eating the bugs, but held off. I didn't know which bugs might be poisonous and frankly, I planned on living, even if only to get myself admitted. Or, on the off chance that I wasn't nuts and someone had done this to me, to find them and kill them. I looked down at my body and was glad there was nothing in my stomach for me to vomit. I was too thin, and my body didn't look like my own. Not even considering the myriad of scratched and bug bites I had, there was the lack of muscle definition, like I hadn't moved in months, and the lack of hair. I wondered if I had been electrocuted. I figured that might cause all my hair to fall out. Or maybe excessive radiation, but I wasn't covered in the sores that would could. I considered a lot of things, my body hadn't been shaved or some hair would have started to grow back. Had my entire body been waxed? How did my skin get so soft? Where had my scars gone.

Yeah, I didn't have any scars. The one from when I was playing baseball with my family and slid into home too hard, it was gone. The one from falling down the stairs at school, gone. The ones from crashing on my dad's motorcycle, gone. The one from forgetting to grab the oven mitts before I grabbed the casserole, gone. Hell, I didn't have any defining marks on my body at all. Every sun freckle, every mole, was gone. And, my wisdom teeth were back. How…the fuck…was that even possible?

I stumbled to the ground and dry heaved until the convulsions caused tears. The tears didn't stop until the morning.

By the morning I was convinced that I was freezing from the inside out, and I needed to find water. Water was usually downhill, water led to people, and animals. I broke a dry stick to a sharp edge and carried it with me.

Day three was walking as clouds gathered over head. I wondered where I was. The forest make up seemed vaguely familiar. My family had gone camping a lot when I was a kid. We went in Colorado, and we went in Washington. We went in Michigan, and we went in Montana. Once we even went camping in France, but that was just the once. The lushness of the vegetation; clearly a temperate rainforest, that was only in one area and by that I determined that I had to be in the Pacific Northwest. Jesus. Great. I could be in Washington, or Oregon. Hell, I could be as far north as Canada or as far south as Northern California. I passed a huckleberry bush that confirmed my suspicions. I picked a few in the hopes of quieting the pain in my stomach. Not to mention that I could be on any of four mountain ranges, which could leave hundreds of miles of untamed land before any civilization showed itself. I tried not to think about that. It was not beneficial to whatever shred of sanity I had left.

As the clouds grew darker I picked the few berries that I recognized as edible, kept walking down hill, found a stream, and began to follow it. Thunder and lightning began shortly before the rain.

I was lucky enough to hear a strike not too far from me. I did my best to run on tired, sore, bleeding feet and found a tree still smoldering. A bit of peat moss and a few dry sticks later I had myself a fire. The only fire I would have. I hid in a dirty cove on the hill near the stream, my little fire with me. That night I did my best but the fatigue got me and by the time I woke the fire was unsalvageable, mainly because there was nothing left that was try. The rain came down in sheets.

The chill pushed me to walk again, to pursue the only way I knew of surviving. I was amazed that I hadn't seen a predator, or many animals really. Perhaps I made too much noise, and perhaps sane creatures stayed in when a torrential storm was coming. But then, clearly I was crazy.

In the rain I fell a lot. It didn't matter. Days and nights blurred under the constant grey of the sky and the aching inside my stomach that no handful of berries could satisfy. The rain would lighten, then become heavy again, but it never stopped. I felt like a fish. At some point I slipped and fell down a hill, there was a sharp pain in my side, and another in my leg, but I was too exhausted, to focused on my goal, to see just how bad it was. The only advantage was the many rivulets of water running down down down. They merged, formed a stream, a creek, a body of water.

I found a river, and stumbled along its bank until it began to overflow. Then I crawled higher and continued, until it rose again. I don't know how long I went on like this, but at some point I must have lost feeling, or sense, maybe both. I'd stopped shivering.

I slipped in the mud and heavy rain water and fell into to raging river with a splash.

I have no idea how I got out of the river. Luck, ingenuity, a fucking miracle, I don't know, but I found myself lying on the shore, coughing water, gasping for air. My body wasn't cold anymore, and my head hurt and I couldn't quite focus my eyes. I felt oddly nauseous. I reasoned that I must have cracked it on one of the rocks that lined the river.

I lay there in the mud and rain for a while, unable to make myself move, unable to think, and frankly tired of trying so hard to live only to be thwarted by a damned storm.

A noise, something, caught my attention and I lolled my head to the side, opening and blinking eyelids that seemed far too heavy. It took me a minute to figure out what I was looking at, and even then I was confused. Partly because I was looking up, and at a slightly upside down angle, I couldn't seem to get my head off the ground, and partly because it seemed impossible. They were dogs. Several dogs. They growled and whined around me. Dogs were unlikely, wolves, I decided. One leaned down to sniff me. I heard the sound, tried to focus my eyes. They seemed huge, like horses. Maybe I shrank. I wondered if it was possible to shrink. Had I shrunk?

The looking and the focusing increased my headache tenfold. I would have cried if I'd had any energy left in me. My last thoughts were a hope that the wolves would go for my throat first, cut an artery, and I'd bleed out quickly. Really, if I was going to die by being eaten, I didn't want to be aware of it.

The pack looked at the body in front of them in bewilderment and no small amount of horror. It was a woman, a naked woman. Sam walked up to her slowly, quite sure she was dead, until her head rolled to the side and she slowly opened her eyes. It was then he could hear her sluggish heart beat. She wasn't dead, but she was close.

And what the hell had happened to her. She was shaved, all of her; head, eyebrows, other parts. Absolutely hairless, like an infant. And, she was covered in sores, scratches, scraps, and bug bites. Not to mention the fact that she was so skinny her hips and ribs poked out of her skin in a disturbing manner.

Sam tried to think of what they could do. They couldn't get her to Forks, even for the wolves trying to cross the river was insane, and the road was washed out.

God, he really hoped the Res. Doctor had been on call when the road washed out or this girl wasn't going to make it.

_What the fuck?_ He heard Embry whisper in his mind.

_Paul_, he called.

_Yeah?_ Paul replied, his voice sounding strained and a little sick.

_Can you carry her?_

Before Paul could answer Jacob already had, sounding more gruff than Sam was accustomed to, and considering what had been going on lately that was saying something.

_I'll take her. Don't touch her._

Sam wondered if that was the best idea. Jacob hadn't exactly been in control of his wolf lately, and if he phased with the girl in his arms she was done for sure.

_I'll do it!_ Jacob snapped. Then, after a minute, _Don't worry._

Before anyone could say anything more Jacob had phased back to human, slipping on his soaked cut offs, before trotting over to the once again unconscious girl and picking her up with surprising gentleness. Then he was off like a shot through the underbrush, heading in the direction of La Push.

The pack turned back and began to follow him.

_Hey guys_, Quil piped up, _I think, do you think…Jacob just._

_Fuck,_ said Paul, maybe. _Wouldn't that be the fly in his ointment._

_No kidding_, said Embry, _But he couldn't have…_

_Let's hope not_. Sam finally added, hoping to stop this gossip fest before it truly began, _but if he did we'll deal with it. Now run. First one home gets an extra steak at dinner tonight._

With a happy yelp the wolves took off towards Emily's kitchen.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I want to thank my reviewer. Very kind of you. As before, I don't expect reviews, but I like them. This story has been kind of unstoppable for me. It is Jacob/Nessie but in the interest of love triangles and following my muse, Paul is going make himself useful. And, again, I hope this story inspires something in you.**

**Disclaimer: Obviously I own nothing, particularly not the brain child of someone else.**

I woke and felt warm for the first time in forever. Really warm. I wondered if my mom had given me the heated blanket. She had a tendency to do that. For all the "I don't give a shit" attitude she showed the world she was very sensitive to the wants and needs of those she loved. Since the vent didn't heat my room very well when I stayed at home I often woke to find she'd laid the electric blanket over me in the night.

But, Gods, why did my body hurt so much? I took a deep breath and moaned. Everything hurt. I _hurt_. I felt a track of tears slip past my eyes. Why was I hurt?

There was something I wasn't remembering.

Then I heard a low growl. It rumbled through my ears and down into my bones, nearly subsonic. I opened my eyes to see a muzzle and shiny white fangs mere feet from me. Oh, yeah, I remembered. I was fucked.

I was driving the Porche, then I got kidnapped, then I woke up in the middle of a forest, then life sucked, then there was rain, and giant wolves.

And now…there was one giant wolf.

It was enormous and brown. I would have thought it was a dog if not for the long snout and the nasty teeth. Had they gotten closer? The wolf's hackles raised.

For some insane reason, likely my own insanity, I felt deeply hurt by the beast's reaction, like it was a personal slight against me, but it was only a small feeling.

Mostly I was terrified.

I slid away from the wolf, to the head of the couch I was laying on, and then off, tripping as I tried to get my feet under me. The wolf took a step closer, and I jerked back in instinct. How big was this thing? A slight pain caught my arm and I glanced over to see an IV slipping out of my arm. I hoped I didn't need it.

Despite my pant-wetting terror I took a split second to be grateful that I was now in clothes: a large tee shirt and a pair of sweats. Great things, clothes, everyone should try them.

The wolf took another step closer, his ears laying back on his head and the world seemed to slow as the adrenaline pumped through me. There was a doorway behind me. The thing was too big for a door way, so I crept that way, making sure to never turn my face from the giant wolf who was baring his teeth at me so angrily, and drooling on the hard wood floor. How the fuck did that thing get in a house?

In the kitchen I stood. The wolf was in the doorway. His snarling went up a notched and he crouched low. _Holy shit_, my mind said, _he's going to attack you. You are going to be attacked by a giant mutant wolf in a stranger's kitchen._ I turned my head to look behind me and there was a door. When I turned back the wolf was lunging. The doorway caught him and he snapped at me, causing me to cry out in surprise and fear, before reaching behind me and wrenching the door open. I slammed the door shut behind me hoping to slow the wolf down as much as possible as it smashed its way through the doorframe. I was out in the rain again, and took off around the side of the house as quickly as my wobbly legs would allow. I could hear the break of glass and wood as the wolf crashed through the back door and every instinct in my body told me that running back toward the woods at the end of the yard was a bad idea. People, I needed to get around people.

I rounded the house with the wolf on my tail. It snapped and snarled and I could practically feel its hot breath on me. So, when I saw the old blue Ford truck I pulled a move strait from those years of baseball and went into a slide, turning over onto my stomach as I slid under the body of the truck. I scrambled around so all my limbs were safely under the engine and waited, chest heaving. My eyes didn't seem to want to focus properly but my ears took in everything: the creaking of the cooling truck, the shuffle of giant paws on gravel, the snuffling of a big nose. My body trembled and wouldn't stop.

Something pushed against the side of the truck and my heart nearly tripped out of my body. Surely that thing couldn't push the truck over, could it? I held my breath. A few minutes might have passed, many minutes might have passed, then there was more scuffling, and more growling. Another wolf. At least one. Even more growling and the sound of a fight, roaring wolf voices and yelps. Great, I was going to get mauled. It couldn't have happened when I was half dead?

But then there was nothing. Nothing for a long time. And finally, a face peaked under the truck. It was a woman, clearly Native American, though I had no idea what tribe she was from. She had several nasty scars running down her face but she looked at me kindly.

"Hey, there," she said gently, like she was speaking to a frightened animal. And, who are we kidding, she was. "It's ok to come out. They're gone. You're safe."

It took her repeating this several times before it began to sink in. Come out, it's ok, it's safe. No place was safe, but maybe I didn't know what I was talking about.

I slid out from under the truck only to feel gentle hands help me sit up, and then she was hugging me and rubbing my shoulders comfortingly. No wonder, I was shaking so bad it seemed almost like I was seizing. She hugged me and whispered nice things into my ear in the rain. It was the first human contact I could remember in a long time.

I was safe, and someone cared.

Faced with that, whatever was left inside me broke. All the fear and the confusion, and the fear, and the anger, and the fear, it tore out of me in a tide of tears that couldn't be stopped. I don't know how long I sat there on the gravel with that woman, crying until I threw up, only to cry some more, but it was a long time. The sun had set before she truly made an effort to calm me.

"Hey," she said, patting my cheeks gently and whipping my tears away. She was very maternal. She adjusted the beanie on my head. "Paul is going to take you to his place and get you patched up. Don't worry. He might seem a bit gruff but he's a good guy."

I stared at her. What was there to say to that?

Suddenly there was a man beside her, or was he a boy? How did he get there so fast? He knelt down and smiled at me, giving a little wave with his hand. He looked like he felt awkward smiling.

"Hey," he said. I stared at him. He wasn't wearing a shirt. His skin was bronze and his hair was black. His eyes were the shade of brown just one step up from pitch. He looked like the embodiment of a scalding hot summer's day in Arizona. "Can you walk?" he asked me. I just shook my head no. I wouldn't be walking for quite a while. I wondered vaguely if I'd peed myself. I was too wet to tell.

This guy, Paul, knelt down, and, Lord, he was tall, slipped one hand under my knees.

"Watch out for her back," the woman said. I wondered why she said that, until I felt the searing pain tearing through my body. I cried out, completely unable to hold it in, but burns are like that. It's a different kind of pain. It takes special training to ignore that kind of pain.

Paul winced and shifted his hand down to my lower-back, no pain there, and lifted me into his arms.

"I'll call you," the scarred woman said and he nodded and we were off.

He walked in silence, and that was ok with me since I didn't know what the hell I would say. It was bad enough I was being carried, but then I discovered that some time during the forest nakedness I'd lost nearly every ounce of dignity I'd had. Nearly. I wished I could walk.

His stride was long and quick and it wasn't long before we came to a trailer park and even less time before we stopped in front of a small trailer.

Inside was just as small as I expected it to be; a small living room with an ancient television, a desk and a small kitchen and dining table. I assumed the two doors on the side were a bathroom and bedroom. It was clean enough. Not someplace a woman lived, but clean enough.

Paul set me down on the threadbare green couch and walked into what I assumed was the bathroom with a "let me get some stuff to patch you up." He came back a few minutes later with an armful of first aid supplies before disappearing into his own room. He came back with a large sweater and a pair of sweats, motioning to me.

"You're soaked," he said. I nodded, tears dripped from my face to plop onto my wet shirt. I hadn't really _stopped_ crying, so it wasn't like I was crying at him. Paul frowned. He dropped the clothes on my lap and sat down to assemble the first aid stuff. It was then that I realized that under my clothes I was covered in bandages, and that I was bleeding, and the pain in my back was intensifying. Then again, that's the way it is with burns. The flesh keeps cooking after it's been heated, until it cools again.

"Take off your shirt," Paul said. I turned my back to him and took off my shirt. The cool air of the trailer pulled my skin tight as it made goose bumps and a whimper forced its way past my lips. "Fuck," Paul hissed under his breath. I guess it was pretty bad. He tilted his head around the side of me until he was looking in my eyes, and I saw concern there. His eyes didn't shift down. I thought it was nice, him trying to maintain my decency, but I had already covered my chest with the sweat shirt he'd handed me, so it wouldn't have mattered.

While he worked he talked, occasionally reaching over to wipe the tears that still trickled down my face.

"Fuck woman, you were in poor shape when we found you, and half dead. Frankly, I'm amazed you pulled through. I think everyone is. You were dehydrated beyond fuck and there was nothing in your body. Nothing. How'd you get that way?"

Kind he was, tactful he clearly wasn't, but neither was my mom, so it wasn't a big deal. And, apparently he'd been part of the party that had found me. I wondered if he was a Ranger. It would make sense, why he was so fit, or maybe a disaster worker. This much water _had_ to count as a disaster.

"How long were you out there?"

I shrugged. I had no idea, a week maybe, maybe a little less, maybe a little more.

He put some kind of ointment on the burns across my upper back, where I assumed I must have pressed it against the hot underside of the engine. Then he bandaged it. He told me where I was, La Push, Washington, and the area, near Forks, which in turn was near some other city, which in turn was near Olympia. He moved on to the road rash around the right side of my middle, where I'd turned as I slid under the car, and on my right arm. He picked out the gravel and dabbed away the dirt, then covered it in Neosporin and bandaged it. He told me local gossip, the elders were bickering over where to have the Spring fair, some kid named Seth was getting into fights in school, the roads were washed out. I figured I was going to look like a mummy by the time he was done.

He moved on to my calf, which had also gotten road rash and was bleeding onto his plaid seat cushions. Then he set about re-bandaging my feet, and I couldn't help wondering how I'd walked on those, let alone run. Finally he fixed up the bandages I already had, most of which had come loose in the running and the rain.

I got to watch myself while he patched me up. My body still didn't look like my own.

The pain in my leg and side had been from pieces of wood. Paul said that the doctor who checked me out said the one had nearly punctured my lung. The one on my leg, well, that would just leave a scar. My feet, I wouldn't be walking well on those for a _while_. He also handed me some pain killers and a couple antibiotics.

"It's the best I've got," he said, "but Sam would have my ass if I let you die of an infection. I nodded, not knowing who this Sam was, or why he cared if I lived or died.

He fixed me soup. It was tomato. He added basil and cilantro and it tasted awesome. My stomach hurt afterwards, but I didn't tell, I was just happy to have food. Then he asked me if I wanted to watch a movie. I nodded, confused how such an old tv was going to play one and then he pulled out an old full disk dvd. I was in shock, I didn't realize they still made those, and put it in the player. Much to my surprise the TV, the player, and the DVD all worked.

After all that was done, and the bowl was on a small chipped up coffee table, Paul plopped down beside me, nearly on me, and wrapped his big arm around my shoulders, pulling me close. I just stared at him in shock, and he frowned.

"Is this ok?" he asked. I was warm, wrapped in his arms, and I felt safe. I tried to smile, but I couldn't, so I just nodded. "Great," he snuggled in closer, "you'll stay here until Sam or Emily calls, then we'll go back to Billy's place, ok?" I nodded again.

We watched the movie for quite some time. It was an old Bond film called Casino Royal. I always loved the classics. I knew I was drifting off when I started to notice the wood paneling that made up Paul's walls, and the way the light from the television flickered on the floor, but I couldn't bring myself to care. I was scared, I was confused, I was traumatized, and, as far as I could tell, I was safe. I wanted to be safe forever.

* * *

I went to live with my mom and dad when I was ten months old. The adoption papers went though before I was one and a half. It's not like my birth mother wanted me anymore, not after what had happened to her. However; I have serious doubts as to whether she ever wanted me.

I've never actually heard her say my name. I've always been _her _or _that_.

So, right around the time I was one and a half my Aunt Rose and Uncle Em became Mom and Dad. I personally think it was the best thing anyone ever did. They couldn't have kids of their own and my parents clearly weren't working out, what with one being dead and the other crazy, so it was a perfect fit.

Dad had just been signed on with France's professional rugby team so we traveled a lot when I was a little girl. It helped my mom get connections for her interior design business. I guess you could say we were pretty well off, especially when Nike signed my dad for some ad campaign. I guess they noticed that a guy who was six foot eight and made mostly of muscle and a smile that could blind might also look good in their boxers. Mom was jealous for a while, until she figured out she could use the publicity to make other women jealous of _her_. Dad thought the whole thing was hilarious but hired a body guard anyway.

Each night my mom would help me take a bath and she would put me to bed. When my dad was home we would pillow fight, or wrestle, then he would read me a story. No matter what, each night I got a kiss, and heard the words "Love you baby girl, my heart overflows with it."

Yeah, my childhood was a good one.

We had a family reunion once a year. Grandpa and Grandma would hold it at their ranch in Colorado. They used to live in a small town in Washington but after what happened with my birth father I think it was too painful for them to stay.

My Gran and Grandad would come sometimes too, even though they're separated. It was always nice knowing that no one resented each other after what my mother did. They were each remarried. Gran even had another daughter, she was two years younger than me; a shy little girl with a surprisingly mischievous streak.

The others were Ali and Jazz, Rose's brother and his wife. Jazz was a psychiatrist, and a damned good one. It was always hard not to feel like he was working his mojo on you when he was around, but he had a subtle sense of humor that I always liked. Ali, she was a little crazy, not like my mother so much as like a humming bird on caffeine, but I guess she was the counterweight to Jazz's calmness.

Sometimes there were some Native American guys who came, too. They were old work buddies of my godfather, Jay. Jay died right around the time my father died. It was apparently the stress of two deaths so close together that caused her mental collapse.

They were friends of my dad too, and they were friendly with Grandpa and Grandma.

We would play baseball, even though Dad always tried to talk us into playing rugby.

"Son," Grandpa would say, "you may be invincible but the rest of us aren't."

The games were always great.

The only down side to the family reunions were the two extra chairs that Grandma always left out at the table.

"For those who couldn't be with us," she always said, and it was followed by a lengthy awkward silence. I was ten before I asked why there weren't _three_ empty chairs.

By the time I was twelve I knew the whole story, bits here and there, pieced together from snippets, old letters, photos, careless comments, eavesdropping, and the occasional traumatic visit to my mother. I knew what had happened and I understood.

That didn't always stop the nightmares.

* * *

I woke up with a start as the front door to Paul's trailer banged open.

"You fucking bastard!"


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: This chapter is a bit short but that's because the last chapter was a bit long. I hope you enjoy it.**

**Dislaimer: I don't own anything, certainly not Twilight.**

Chapter 3

I jerked in shock, a small gasp coming out of me as Paul pulled me closer.

"Leah," he said warningly.

"No, don't even try to talk! You don't deserve to talk!" The woman in question was tall, nearly six and a half feet and her black hair was cut into a bob. A dark tattoo stood out on her tan skin. She looked like a boxer. She looked like an Amazon warrior. Why the hell was an Amazon warrior pissed off at Paul?

"You know, it's bad enough that the whole Res knows about your exploits, now you come and bring a white whore home? God! Have you not humiliated us enough?" She was screaming. The sound seemed crowded in such a small trailer. I wondered how a human could have a voice that loud.

Very carefully I turned my head toward Paul, who was holding me close against his body and trying futilely to shush this Leah woman.

I found my voice, horse from disuse. "Girlfriend?" I whispered.

Leah laughed bitterly, "Like I would ever date that!" Apparently I hadn't been as quiet as I thought.

"No," Paul breathed against my hair.

"Wife?"

It was the wrong thing to say. Before I knew it Amazon Leah was standing over me, her whole body trembling with anger. And then, she hit me. Thank goodness she hit the cheekbone or else she might have loosened some teeth. The woman had to take steroids or something. Before I could recover from the spots in my eyes I was shoved behind Paul, who was standing and growling. It was a very violent sound that echoed through his lungs and back. It reminded me of another growl I didn't want to think about.

"Stop it! Now!" Paul was louder than Leah, and Leah shut up. I touched my face, it was already starting to welt. Nice.

When Leah was stopped, breath heaving loudly in the small space, Paul moved back a little, though he still kept his body protectively in front of mine.

"Leah," he said, sounding exasperated and just a little disgusted, "meet the girl we found in the woods. You remember her, right?"

How many people had found me?

Leah's eyes grew big, and I may have been imagining it but a bit of a blush stole up her cheeks. "You look different," she said slowly, "with clothes on." Then she was silent, her eyes drifting to the wall behind me.

I sighed and leaned heavily against Paul. "Most people do." My throat felt like it had never been used and my face felt like it was pulsing. Outside it was misting.

Leah nodded and with that turned and walked out. Paul walked to the freezer and pulled out a steak, then he pressed it against my face.

"Keep that there until it thaws," he said, "I'm going to eat it for lunch."

I smiled at him, and it almost reached my eyes. "Sorry about Leah," Paul added, "she's…a thorough bitch. I wish I could say she gets better but she doesn't."

I nodded.

"Hey, can I borrow your cell phone?" I asked suddenly. "My parents have to be absolutely freaking out about me. I'm amazed I'm not on the national news yet." Paul stared at me blankly for a second before a repentant look crossed his face.

"Sorry," he replied, "I don't have a cell phone. Not really a need, just the house phone here, but Billy does. You can use his when we get over there."

I stared at him. No cell phone? How did he _survive_?

"Well then, can I use your net?...internet," I added when he just stared at me.

"Oh," he said, in obvious surprise, "don't have that either. Not this far out, but Billy does, and there are some computers at the library if you need them."

Again I stared at him. How was his house not wired? Hell, even my parents' refrigerator had the internet. I was pretty sure my car did, too. I felt the oddness of this raise the hairs on the back of my neck, which was a new development since last time I knew I hadn't had any hairs on the back of my neck.

"Do you mind if I use your restroom? You do have a restroom, right?" I was being facetious and unkind to my host but the in my defense it was the stress of being unable to contact my family. I wondered again how someone could live in such isolation.

Paul gave me an odd look and a jerking nod toward the door furthest from me. On shaking legs I got up, and with some help from Paul, hobbled myself to the bathroom.

I used the bathroom in the first time in what felt like forever. Then I stood in front of the mirror. In a spontaneous decision I took off all my clothing and stood in front of it, shivering.

My body was indeed hairless, though I had begun to grow the faintest hint of eyebrows and there was the finest layer of hair atop my head. I was covered in scratches, and what would become new scars but the marks that had disappeared when I awoke I the forest had not returned.

My body _still_ did not seem like my own.

I was still too thin, and my eyes were sunken. I looked like I'd been through hell. I checked over my entire body, every inch I could see and a few inches I shouldn't have been able to see. The only natural mark on my body was what appeared to be a birth mark behind my ear. It looked a little like the number 785. I swallowed down bile at that and decided to think on it later. In the mean time I put my clothes back on and returned gingerly to the living room, frozen, but no worse for wear.

I sat down beside Paul and he wrapped me in his big arms again.

The corded house phone rang about an hour later, jerking me out of a shallow sleep I'd fallen into while the thawing steak lay on my swollen face.

Paul only had a motorcycle so he opted to carry me back over to Billy's house. It was still raining, but this time I held the steak with one hand and an umbrella with the other.

"You have escapades?" I asked when we were almost at the other house.

I suppose he heard the humor in my voice because Paul smiled. "Yeah, you got a problem with that?"

I shook my ever so slightly, "No, no, just surprised. You've been such a gentleman to me."

"I know how to treat a lady," said Paul with a smirk.

"I don't think you're one of those guys," I replied.

"What kind?" Paul seemed genuinely curious, he turned his head down to look at me, and his eyes told me my answer was important. I felt for him. Did everyone treat him like Leah had?

"A player. You're a one woman guy. You've got a heart."

Paul gave the smallest smile before looking away. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course I don't," I said, but we both knew that I did.

**A/N: A few points, this is a Jacob fic, I'm just working up to it, besides, what's a love story if there isn't a love triangle. Also, I'm assuming that if in the AH world Renesmee was born some time in 2007 than she'd be from the late 2020s, and since our technology just keeps getting better and better…well, yeah. She wouldn't expect rabbit ears or a house phone.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews and the favorites. I wasn't expecting them and I was pleasantly surprised, again. Another chapter in my odder-than-odd story. As usual, all spelling and grammar mistakes are mine; please be patient with me. Reviews are not needed, but they please me.**

**Disclaimer: See other disclaimers. I do not own Twillight. However, the characters have given permission to "try and do better." I've taken them up on the offer.**

**Chapter 4**

Chief Billy Black's house was an old red cottage, nice for a reservation house, with a barn that had been redone into a car garage for his tool jockey son. I didn't see the son, but Paul told me about him as we walked over. He said that he was strong and talented, that he had the makings of a leader, but that he was selfish and dramatic (more dramatic than the woman who had given me the black eye I was currently nursing?) and unwilling to do what needed to be done. He seemed to have mixed feelings for the kid.

Once inside the house I was met by a group of people. It was unexpected.

"What did you do to her?" This yelled by a large man standing in the middle of the room.

"Sam, I-" So this was Sam. Somehow I didn't expect someone quite this aggressive.

"I told you to protect her!" I stared between the two. What was this about? Why did this guy care? Sam took a step forward and Paul averted his eyes, his whole body beginning to tremble.

Not cool.

"It wasn't him," I said, though it strained my throat to speak in a regular voice. My voice sounded off now, rougher than _before_. "He didn't hurt me."

Now that Sam was looking at me and under the full force of his stare I understood why Paul had looked away. He was fucking scary. There was power that floated around him like an aura. This man was a leader and a master of his domain. I'd met a few men like him in my life, a few CEOs, a few athletes, men you didn't mess with.

"Then what happened?"

I cleared my throat as Paul set me gently on my feet.

"Some girl came in, pissed off." I swallowed and took the thawed steak off my face. My eye had nearly swollen shut. "She yelled at Paul, called me a whore, and then hit me."

The woman from the night before gasped and a few of the men in the room gaped. Sam looked to Paul.

"Leah," Paul said flatly.

Sam's hands clenched into fists and for a few moments his entire body tremored, then he relaxed. It struck me as very odd. "I'll speak with her later," he said darkly, and then he stepped over to me and reached up to touch my face.

Involuntarily, I flinched back against Paul, who wrapped a warm hand comfortingly around my forearm. For a split second Sam looked wounded by my fear but he covered it up flawlessly a moment later.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said, gentling his tone.

"I know that," I lied. He raised an eyebrow but didn't disagree, raising his hand again to gingerly feel the side of my face, where the cheek had split from the impact. I winced but said nothing. After a few minutes of probing he removed his hand.

"You're lucky she didn't break your cheek bone," he told me. No kidding, I was the one who got hit, I knew how hard it had been. I just nodded.

It was then that Sam turned around the room and introduced me.

"This is Chief Billy Black, and it's his house you're in. Beside him is Emily, my fiancé." Ah, that's who she was. He pointed at a young man who looked to be Paul's age, "This is Jared, and beside him is Embry. They were there when we found you."

I made a face. Was there anyone who hadn't been there?

Chief Black rolled up in his wheel chair, and I managed to only look surprised for a moment, before he shook my hand. He was handsome. When he was young he must have been stunning.

"It's nice to meet the girl whose been using my couch for the past several days," he said, a slight smile on his face. "You're looking better."

I blushed under his comments and his scrutiny. I just wanted to go home. "Thank you." I said softly.

Emily also came up and wrapped her arms gently around me. "Are you ok?" she asked. I nodded my head and tried to smile at her. The others came up and shook my hand. They seemed wary of me, though oddly hyper. I stood closer to Paul. The other boys watched us very closely, close enough to leave me a little unnerved.

Still, they sat next to me on Chief Black's couch. I couldn't bring myself to call him Billy, it just seemed too informal. They were as hot as Paul, and their warmth seeped into me from either side.

Finally Embry reached up to gingerly touch the beanie I wore. "Any of that hair growing back?" His thumb slipped under the lip and ran over the back of my head. I swallowed and nodded, if I'd ever had any brothers I might have said I felt as though they were siblings I hadn't seen in a long time, but I didn't know how that would feel to make the comparison. "Yeah," the hoarseness in my voice didn't look like it would be going anywhere soon, "just a little."

Embry removed his hand. Jared didn't look at me. I swallowed again. My throat hurt from the effort to talk, but talk I did.

"It used to be curly, you know."

Embry looked at me in confusion. "What, you're hair?"

I nodded and glanced up, imagining I could still see the curls falling over my brow. "Yeah. Really curly."

For a moment Embry stared at me and I knew he was imagining me with hair, how different I must have looked. Then he smiled kindly.

"I bet it's pretty."

I couldn't help but smile back. "It is."

A few minutes later the others walked back into the living room.

Billy Black cleared his throat. "The roads are still washed out but we've called the Forks police and told them about you. They'll be over to get you as soon as the roads get cleaned up, but there's been some landslides so it could be a few days. In the mean time, and considering what happened with that _big dog_ yesterday, you're going to stay with Sam and Emily. That alright?"

What choice did I have, really? I nodded.

"Great."

I held up my hand and they all stopped and stared at me like I'd just grown a second head. What? I'd just spent the last 17 years of my life raising my hand, it was second nature.

"Um, I really want to contact my family. I'm sure they're in hysterics by now. Can I use your cell?"

They all looked at me as though it hadn't occurred to them and Chief black wheeled way, I wondered how he'd gotten in the chair in the first place, and came back a few minutes later.

He handed me a large, ancient, cell phone. I stared at it.

"It's all I've got, and it doesn't have much long distance, but if it'll do the trick go ahead."

I was pretty sure the thing didn't even work on the same frequency as my parents' droid phones. I handed it back to him feeling a bit freaked out myself.

"Internet?" I managed to ask.

Billy sighed and nodded, motioning me over to a small desk and chair in the corner. The computer was a clunker, and large and ancient as well. Again, I found myself amazed that an antique like that even worked.

"I've only got dial up," Chief black said, "but it works, so go ahead." I just stared at him. Dial up? There was still dial up? With wires? The Chief cleared his throat and looked away. "Well, we'll just be outside, discussing…things. Let us know when you've contacted your family." And with that everyone turned and left out a side door near the kitchen. I just stared at the thing for several minutes, before pulling out the chair and sitting down.

The dialup took almost ten minutes to connect. No wonder no one used it anymore.

It was bad enough I was using dial up, when I'd been convinced dial up didn't exist anymore, and I was distressed to realize I couldn't use skype to contact my parents. But, I was determined. I decided to email them, my whole family received emails on their phones so it would get to them just as fast.

Except that my Gmail password didn't work. Neither did my Yahoo, or my Hotmail.

I tried Twitter. I tried Facebook. I tried the account I'd had when I was ten on MySpace. I tried every forum I could ever remember signing up for. Nothing. Everything came up with the suggestion that I'd gotten my password or ID wrong. They weren't wrong.

I could feel myself beginning to tremble uncontrollably. It was getting difficult to type. I wanted to go home. I was tired of this game, this craziness. My grandpa would send a helicopter to get me if I could just tell him where I was.

I went onto the online yellow pages and put in the names of everyone I knew. Nothing. I went to another and another. Every sight I could find that offered people. I searched my own name. Nothing.

Tears were streaming down my face as I googled my dad. He was a fucking international rugby player. He'd been in the fucking tabloids. Nothing. My mother, nothing. My grandpa, head of a hospital and famous in his own right for his research on cancer during his younger years, nothing. I searched my own name. Renee Esme Kullen. Nothing.

I searched for my friends, my aunts, I searched the boy who I'd dated my junior year at college. Not even he came up.

I choked on my own tears as the umpteenth search came up with "no results".

I didn't exist. My family didn't exist. My mom, my dad, my grandparents. Gone. There was no one to go home to. No one to miss me, or even know I was gone. I was alone.

The wailing cry that was torn from my chest as I slid to the floor was not of my own doing. It was pain ripping its way out of my body.

My mom, my dad. Everyone.

I laid my head on the hardwood floor and vomited.

I don't remember much after that until the rez doctor, and elderly man, snapped a smelling salt under my nose. I was surrounded by these people, and I didn't know if they were real or imaginary but I needed to get away. I needed to find my family.

I gasped and tried to fight them, but I wasn't strong enough to break away.

"Please!" I begged, "Please! No! Oh, fucking God, please!" I was asking them to kill me. I was asking Him to kill me. Never in my life, never in my wildest imaginings would I have predicted everyone in my life being gone, that everything would be gone.

I felt a sharp prick in my arm and the world began to spin. Then it fell into blackness.

* * *

My birth mother married my father the summer after their senior year in high school. They'd known each other just under 12 months. Year round school. Neither of their rather affluent families approved, considering both of them too emotionally immature, but they wanted to be supportive, and couldn't find a way to stop them, so they consented.

There was a boy from a nearby reservation who my mother dated before she met my father. He had continued to try and win her, under the guise of being her friend, until she got married. At the wedding he I-objected. It didn't work. They still got married. Apparently he stopped wanting my mother a few weeks later when she informed everyone that she was pregnant. My father was ecstatic. My mother was not.

My mother had never wanted to be a mother. She wanted to live with her beautiful husband and be young forever. I had just put a major kink in her plans. My father, an aspiring model, got a good gig, and they moved to an apartment in L.A. My mom's old-boyfriend-turned-just-friend came down to visit often, as did both sides of the family.

Pregnancy did not treat my mother well. To everyone it seemed as though she was unraveling at the edges, unable to take care of herself or keep up with a regular life. My father did his best to help her, but with long hours and though he adored being the care taker, and maybe that's why he'd married my mother in the first place, he could only do so much. He worried about the baby and before too long his mother came to help with daily life. It didn't stop the fights. My mother screaming about not wanting a baby, about her body being ruined, my father just shouting back anything that came to mind. I've seen his work from that period. Very Victorian goth.

Seven months into the marriage and six months into the pregnancy and my mother was already starting to talk about suicide. I was born a little over seven months in. I was a preemie.

My mother's ex-boyfriend, who was a deep friend of the family at this point, apparently even a grudging friend of my father, was named the god-father. He adored me as much as my birth father did.

The post partum depression was terrible. Family members took time off from their jobs, flew in from other countries, to change out duties watching her, and watching me. My father did his best, tried to support them, to take care of me, but he had never claimed to be a good man. I was five months old when my father started stepping out on my mother. No one would know until much much later. She was a waitress paying her way through community college, not as beautiful as my mother, but much more stable emotionally.

Two months later my father died in a mugging. He was coming late out of a photo shoot. Apparently pretty doesn't equal good in a fight. It wasn't personal, just evil.

My mother took it _very_ personally. And, her family demanded that she move back to Washington while they made the arrangements.

I hear the funeral was rainy. I hear my father liked rain.

My god-father and my grandparents did most of the care taking, though my gramps did some too. Gran lived in Miami and couldn't afford to fly quite as often as my aunts and uncles so she didn't see me much. My mother was fine with this. She still resented her for getting remarried.

A few months later my mother packed me and all her belongings and told her family thank you very much for the help but she was moving back to her apartment in L.A.

A little over two weeks after that my god-father showed up at her apartment. She was lying in her bed hugging a photo of my father. She was dirty and half-starved.

I was in the living room floor crying. From what I hear I was not doing well. She had fed me only a handful of times since we'd returned and possibly hadn't changed me at all. The doctors said a couple more days and I would have been dead. My mother and god-father had quite a screaming match. It ended with him taking me and leaving.

My god-father wasn't thinking strait. He drove me to my Aunt Rose and Uncle Ems villa just outside of L.A. They were still unpacking their bags when he barged in and tearfully put a baby in their arms. Aunt Rose took me to the hospital while Uncle Em stayed with my god-father, who was thoroughly freaked out by the entire incident.

As soon as they told him I would live he got in his car and drove back to Washington.

In the meantime my mother finally made good on all those threats to kill herself, or at least she tried to. My grandpa called the E.R. as soon as he heard what was going on and told them to send an ambulance to her house. Good thing. She'd cut her wrists.

They transferred both of us to my grandpa's hospital. He forgot to tell them not to let her call anyone after she got out of intensive care. She called my god-father and told him she'd tried to kill herself. She begged him to come see her.

It was dark and cold and rainy. He died in a car crash on the way over.

Whatever had been left of my birth mother broke then, and I'm convinced it never came back. She was nearly catatonic for years, and when she did come around she would have frequent fits of hysteria, blaming herself for what happened, or blaming everyone else.

My god-father left me most of the shares of his mechanic business, and smaller shares to his workers, who were also his friends. It wasn't like I could use it, I was one, but I guess he thought I was the closest he'd ever have to a daughter.

My Aunt Rose filed the adoption papers first.

* * *

I woke up in a different house from the one I'd fallen asleep in. I was groggy and weak, clearly the sedatives were still in my system. It smelled of wood and looked like it too. I was laying in a small bed and beside me sat Emily.

"You're awake," she said with a soft smile.

I just turned away from her as the tears began to leak from my eyes again and I felt a soft hand rest on my shoulder.

"Can you tell me what happened?"

I shook my head, unable to speak for a long time, but she just waited.

Finally, I managed in a cracked whisper. "I can't find them."

Her voice was gentle and concerned, "Who? Your family?"

I just nodded my head and looked at the wood paneled wall.

"They're not there. I'm not there." It was amazing that Emily could even hear what I was saying considering how quiet my voice was, but I couldn't speak over the sound of my heart shattering.

She slipped her hand over my body in a soft hug and I felt myself trembling as tears dripped over my nose and onto the pillow beneath me. "Oh, Sweety, we'll find them. Don't worry. We'll find them."

I knew she was sincere, and I knew she truly believed what she said, but I knew she was wrong. They wouldn't find anything.

I was alone.

**Post A/N: Struggling a touch with this story. Not with writing it, don't get me wrong. Writing it is no trouble (I've got 40 pages of it on my computer already). But, I worry how it sounds. Just take the qualities of the original Nessie Cullen. It's almost like a non-story. She's beautiful and perfect and has beautiful, perfect, never dying, parents, who were the main characters of the series. Her family is rich and famous (I mean, vegetarian vampires, not common, and the Voltouri want some of them, they're famous). She's beyond genius and cultured, you never find yourself wondering "what is that damn kid thinking now?" She is compelling and no one hates her. She is also the imprint of poor Jacob Black who would hate the situation dearly if it weren't for the pack magic. I mean, loving the daughter of the girl you spent a couple years pining for? That sucks. So, he's tied to them forever. Which neatly rids us of Jacob anxt, instead of giving him the opportunity to be truly angry over having been yanked around by Bella all that time. It sounds completely ridiculous, and this is the published stuff! How does one un-Marry-Sue a Marry-Sue? So, I know that the entire premise of my story is really really farfetched, but at least it can't be any worse than the original…**


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